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 Later this evening, I’m attending a party at Nashville’s famed Bluebird Cafe during which I will be hanging out with some of the town’s songwriteratti. I rarely (as in never) hang out with the folks who make Nashville famous, however, my friend Alice Randall gives me a one-degree-of-separation from all sorts of talented and famous people.
Alice recently spent several months working with Courtney and Carter Little on a unique project for Nashvile-based publisher Naked Ink, a book called My Country Roots: The Ultimate MP3 Guide to America’s Orignial Outsider Music that will be available December 6. (There’s also a cool website that will launch then, as well.)
Here’s how the book is described by the publisher:
Containing 100 recommended playlists for downloading, this book is the best and most unique way to explore the Country music genre in a modern, easy, convenient way. Each playlist walks you through the history, culture, and relevance of Country music, revealing the authenticity and raw truth that represents Country.
Whether you are a long-time lover of Country music or just discovering the genre, this book will help you not only organize your music, but explore, evaluate, and critique the music while learning about the basics of Country—who we are, what we sound like, what we believe in, where we’ve come from, and where we’re goin’. This guide also provides a behind the scenes look at some of the cities that have spawned the greatest music of the genre and films that have contributed to the mystique which defines Country. For all you music lovers, mp3 users, or folks who are interested in discovering or rediscovering your country roots, this is a book you can’t live without!
The event I’m attending tonight is a book launch preview party. I don’t really know what to expect, but I have permission (encouragement?) to take photos and blog anything I’d like. Admittedly, I’m having some intimidation about blogging anything to do with country music and parties as anything I will do could never compare with the virtuosic bloggership of such activities by my hero, Mr Roboto.
Despite such trepidation, I’ll be posting photos and comments about the party later. (Perhaps very later.)
Technorati Tags: country music, my country roots, nashville
Forgive me for appearing to pump up the Techmeme juice for this PaidContent.org story about a wiki-based media property being purchased for $2 million. I’d hate to be accused of appearing self-serving in pointing out that wiki-based collaborative media properties are becoming attractive media acquisitions — and will only become more attractive in the next six to 18 months. And just because there’s some urban-legendary belief that only Yahoo! and Google are “exit strategies” for community-based online media, I’d hate to spread the news that other media companies and brand marketers are looking for early-movers in this arena. Really, I’d hate for that idea to catch on.
Technorati Tags: web2.0, wiki, wikis
If you want to see what’s good and what’s bad about Wikipedia, a good place to watch real-time is the entry for Robert Gates. For a few moments this morning, it was the world’s most powerful magnet for jokesters. Here’s the page’s history. If you hit it at the right refresh, you’ll learn about his career in the CIA and National Security Council and about him being president of Texas A&M. However, if you hit it at the wrong nanosecond a few minutes ago, you’d have learned, well, here’s a screen grab.
Within moments of the news that Gates will be nominated to replace Rumsfield, the entry was locked down (changes can only be made by those registered for over 24 hours) to prevent such vandalism:
For a look at how volunteer Wikipedians are discussing how to update the entry (the correct way), visit the discussion taking place among Wikipedians about the entry.
For the record, I think the good far outweighs the bad.
Technorati Tags: robert gates, wikipedia, wikipedians
A - Because Bubble 1.0 wasn’t really a bubble. Or so goes a theory reported by Lee Gomes in today’s Wall Street Journal (free feature).
Quote:
“While most people recall the colossal flops of the period (Webvan, pets.com, etoys and the rest) the survival rates of the era’s companies turns out to be on a par, if not slightly higher, than those in several other major industries in their formative years.”
The revisionist history is found in a paper analyzing business plans from the dot-com era that suggests the dot-com bust was concentrated in companies that followed the theory that getting big fast is the way to success (and it was, for a few lottery winners). However, dig down into what really happened and you’ll discover lots of dot-com startups that followed the traditional small business approach (small niche, little overhead, and, oh, what’s that?, revenue) that are still thriving companies, but you’ve never heard of them.
Quote that anyone thinking of a Web 2.0 startup should print out and read everyday:
“Most of these survivors, though, aren’t the titans like Amazon or eBay, but much smaller efforts such as wrestlinggear.com, which sells equipment to high-school and college wrestlers, what Prof. Kirsch called precisely the sort of demanding niche market for which Web shopping was invented. The fact that so many dot-com companies survived suggests that even more could have started. But that didn’t happen, says the study. Investors following conventional wisdom of the day were interested only in companies that could dominate an entire industry. In looking for these, they ignored smaller niche opportunities that had the potential to become modest but profitable enterprises. “It turns out there were lots of nooks and crannies for entrepreneurial action,” says Prof. Kirsch. “But those nooks and crannies might have been $5 million or $10 million businesses — well worth doing, though not necessarily for VCs.”
Related: My recent rant regarding myopic VCs who only invest in startups 20 minutes from their offices.
Sidenote discovery: The owner of WrestlingGear.com has a blog.
Technorati Tags: small business
Jeff Cornwall: “Neither party seems to understand where we are in our economic history. We are now in a period of economic transformation: unlike any we have seen in over a century.”
Technorati Tags: small business
I used to think I hated Flash. What I really hated was the way in which web developers use Flash to take over my browser and waste my time animating things superfluously. I touted it last night, but the NYTimes.com’s House election map is worth another look this morning. In addition to displaying how well-designed charts can tell stories (i.e., roll-over the yellow squares to see, real-time, why those races are still up in the air), it also displays how a little bit of Flash can go a lot longer way than a whole lot of Flash.
Technorati Tags: design, flas
A few random observations from the bleacher seats:
1. An individual’s vote counts. A few hundred votes here and there can mean the difference in what party controls the House and Senate.
2. All politics are local, except when they’re national. Somewhere in the coverage of the election, a reporter mentioned talking with a voter in Colorado who said he voted for the Democratic Party’s candidate for governor because he is frustrated with the war in Iraq. Strange thing is, it made complete sense to me.
3. TV coverage of elections is like tuning into a football game and all they show you are the announcers in the booth telling you their opinion of what’s taking place on the field.
4. Of all the really awful types of speeches you’ll ever hear, the two worse types of speeches are the election night victory speech and the election night concession speech. Winner: “This election is not about me, this election is about you, the citizens of this state.” (translation: That’s why I’m up here and you’re down there.) | Loser: “I can’t tell you what a privilege it has been to travel all over this great state and meet its wonderful citizens.” (translation: “I can’t believe I just wasted a year of my life and a few million dollars.”)
5. Advice to local news media operations. Forget everything you currently believe about covering elections. All those reporters you have stationed everywhere could have their own mini-channels rather than just waiting around to appear on the big-channel. Your viewers, readers, listeners are experts on the topic of who they voted for and why. They now have the same reporting tools you have. Figure out how to work together.
6. There needs to be a book called “The History of American Elections for Dummies” And by dummies, I mean reporters (and, okay, bloggers). Hint: By historical comparisons, our elections today are not “divisive.” Recall, we’ve had at least one election in our history that touched off the start of a long-simmering civil war in which over 600,000 Americans died. And if you think “negative advertising” is new, well, read up on the election of 1800 between Adams and Jefferson.
7. Timing is everything. You know how there are bubbles and busts in markets? You know how even the experts can mis-time the markets? You know how if you wait a bit, what is out of favor today can come back into favor tomorrow if you add Ajax to it and call it 2.0? Well, all of that applies to politics as well.
Technorati Tags: election2006
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Quote: “We learned our lesson last time.”
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Quote: The flourishing Web start-up scene will create some train wrecks. But because people can start companies for relatively small sums compared to the tens of millions doled out during the dot-com heyday, the crashes won’t hurt as many.
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